I always return to the sea when I forget how to drown.

  As the waves rustle over the sands, a mesmerizing shiver diffuses through my bones. I watch them wash over the sands — over and over again. Erasing footsteps and litter alike. I see the wind’s marks on the dunes, the curve of the shoreline I can trace behind closed eyes. This is the beach of my youth. The dunes guard the village I grew up in.

  The silted air salts the lungs, a familiar sting. I feel it with every breath, together with the sun-warmed sand flowing over my feet. The summer wind blows through my hair, filled with the laughter of children playing. Memories of things that once were slowly take over the sound of the waves. The few happy ones stand out. The falling stars I watched on that spot between the dunes — now infested with dune grass. Back then it was just sand. Where I sat between the dunes, where the wind and the waves were dulled and a serene silence held court. More drunk than I ever have been, insisting there was one falling star that moved strangely. I let out a huff of air, in honor of the foolish young one I was.

  My view settles on a spot a bit further, more secluded, where the dunes block wandering eyes. There I remember her and the kissing and fooling around we did. Her name was… I cannot remember her name; I do remember everything else of that day. For a single muscle contraction, I smile. Two happy memories, two more than some. Then the salt starts to taste sharp as other things take over. My mind always focuses on the less happy spots, as if trained to do so. My eyes rest where the three guys threatened me and beat me up. The fear sneaks up in my stomach again from that moment: a twelve-year-old boy running from older ones. I feel the scar on the back of my head as I remember where they had hit me. I wonder what I did. I cannot remember that.

  On top of the dune, the lighthouse swings its light in never-ending circles, the black and white etched in the soul of my origins. I look out toward the village. I know all the streets by name. I know the houses each held a memory — places I visited, ate, or slept. All of them are still there as if time stopped the day I left.

  The church in the middle, a monolith worshipped by the houses around it. I squint my eyes at it. Not to see it clearly; it is the thought of it that makes me swallow. I never believed in anything. Not that I found anything wrong with it, I just did not feel the need for it. Still, my parents did not think that was possible. They insisted a religious upbringing was part of their job. Their religious upbringing was the only one they knew. The mornings they dragged me sometimes literally to it. The special breakfast they made to make it more appealing, pancakes heavy with syrup. The smell of it still makes me anxious to this day. The day they gave up should be a happy memory. But it was the day they gave up. Not only did the weekly fighting ritual stop. Everything stopped. The village changed color from that day on. That day

  I decided to leave. The last Sunday I walked through a house of glass, waiting for it to shatter. Even now, after all this time, my eyes burn.

  I look away from that place, offer my face to the wind, plead for it to blow the thought away. I decide to walk the shoreline, to feel the salt water washing over my feet, the cold wet sand that wriggles between my toes, the feeling that I enjoyed so many times. This time it felt wrong. Not refreshing or tickling. Just cold, wet, and dirty. As I gaze across the water, seeing ships floating on the unseen horizon, I wonder why — why I came here.

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  Just before me, a boy; I stop abruptly and sidestep him at the last second, my feet tangle and I fall hard in the sand. I open my mouth, wanting to scold the boy for not paying attention. Then I see his face; its expression all too familiar. As he sits in the sand, watching some older children play in the sea. They have an air mattress. Laughing and shouting, they dive into the sea. The features of the children are similar — Family. The eldest one must be his brother, the resemblance is too close. The others, cousins maybe. The boy sighs, gets up, and wades through the waves. A thin body, barely able to master the waves, falling down at the big ones—a wounded seagull next to his brother, who swims with the effortless grace of a seal. As they collide, the elder boy pushes him; he falls again, one hand resting on the air mattress. I watch as the brother peels the fingers away one by one then pushes him away.The boy goes under. Comes up sputtering, coughing. He grabs the mattress again, says something—a plea—and tries to climb up. He is pushed off again. This time, the brother pushes him under, then pulls him by his hair up. The boy cries and screams, his arms beating the water in a useless panic. He is pushed away again. The brother holds him down for a few seconds this time. The others are laughing as the boy comes up coughing again; the brother slams his hand away from the only thing that keeps him afloat.

  I stand up, fiddle with my belt. I need to get in the water, get the little boy out before it is too late. It is harder than it should be. The coughs are getting louder. I look up to see the little boy wading through the sea back to the sand, crying, spitting water, falling from exhaustion every few steps. As he crawls on the beach, he lies there for a while, catching his breath as the waves roll over him. I sit down in the wet sand close by, waiting until he finds the strength to sit back up.

  I look into his face, he only looks down, unmoved by the cold waves as they wash over him. I know that look; if you ever held those thoughts inside you, you recognize it immediately. A deep inhale as I look for words—words that tell him that it will get better, that there will be moments of peace and joy, that this feeling passes.

  I cannot tell him that.

  I realize I know that boy. I know him. I hated that face — the permanent fear in his eyes. That hair, those scrawny limbs. I despised his crying, the way he talked. I pitied him, more than I have pitied anything else ever.

  Shall I tell him that there will be speckles of light in his life, just enough to keep the dark at bay? Still, there will be moments where the next day is difficult to see. Shall I tell him he gets cancer young, survives it, but is left barren — his dreams of a family shattered? Can I explain that the moment he stops fighting for the happiness he so longs for is the moment he begins to understand? That it is the chase for that poisonous butterfly that is the whole problem? That he needs to be at peace with what he is, so that he can become what he will become? That life is simply that? Then, after he finally figures it out — when he is far to old —he will find peace. Not happiness—peace. Will that help, or will it waste away his drive to live even further than it already is? I know how close to the edge he will come. Will it be a push or a pull to tell him that?

  ***

  The answers never come as the beige of the sands shifts; grains flow together into a white ceiling, the sounds of the waves fade, the rustling remains with every breath. I look up at the ceiling, some water marks on it, a memory in itself. I know every stain, every spot. I am in bed. In my room, I have been at peace here. As the edges of my vision start to get dark, my heart slows with each beat. A long single beep fills the room as I cough for one last time. I taste the salt, the salt of my youth. I realize what is happening; the woman next to me looks worried. I reach for her hand.

  “It is okay,” as she cries, I squeeze her hand. “It is okay.”

  I think about the boy on the beach that day. I wonder why that memory is my last.